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Comment by jokethrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Sounds exactly like chronic fatigue syndrome, I don't know why we keep calling it Long COVID while we have a name for it.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs/ > Suggested causes or triggers for ME/CFS include: > viral infections, such as glandular fever > bacterial infections, such as pneumonia > problems with the immune system > a hormone imbalance > your genes – ME/CFS seems to be more common in some families

I have a friend who got CFS out of nowhere (shortly before the 2 years to flatten the curve started, no COVID involved) and it's bad, there is no cure and it's incredibly disruptive. At the same time, it's hard for people to take you seriously and not just call you lazy.

Hopefully this study goes somewhere and we'll find a cure for CFS.

View on HN

Tell your friend to look into dysautonomia. There are some cutting edge treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome, they just haven't become mainstream knowledge yet.

The two most effective approaches are using neuroplasticity exercises to retrain the limbic system (cheap, but time consuming - an hour a day for 6 months): https://ansrewire.com/ https://retrainingthebrain.com/

Or doing microcurrent neurofeedback (costs ~$150 a session, do one session a week for a couple months): https://microcurrentneurofeedback.com/

Essentially you have got to get the brain producing the proper amount and type of brain waves again, and then once you have that, slowly work back into exercising while trying to avoid triggers and push / crash cycles.

God bless you for this. Seriously.

I hope so too. I recognized the symptoms (in myself) as soon as I started reading the abstract.

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from the link cdrini posted above, which is a Guardian article by one of the authors of the study in the original post.[0]

"Even those without long Covid could benefit from such research, as symptoms noted in long Covid patients show many similarities to those seen in chronic and viral-related illnesses including myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) – another disease that has been dismissed as “psychological” for decades. Just because we have not yet identified a biomarker for long Covid does not mean biomarkers do not exist. We just need to look harder."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29808020

PS. Hope the post is done correctly, it's my first one here.

If you're interested in Biomarkers for Long Covid and ME/CFS, look up Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). MMP-9, MSH, ACTH, TGF-beta 1, Cortisol, Glutathione, and Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide are a few of them. Lots of research here that was started by illnesses triggered by mold mycotoxins and lyme disease - the initial trigger is different than Covid - but the end result in terms of biomarkers and dysregulation in the body is the same. Doctors have been using these protocols to successfully treat patients for a few years now, but it just hasn't trickled down to the mainstream medical community or the medical schools yet.